The security features of a set-top box (STB) system-on-a-chip (SoC), for example, may depend upon the security of the storage device used by the STB SoC. For example, the storage device may be an external flash memory, a synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) or another type of storage device. Storage device content, which is stored in the storage device, may include, for example, host processor instructions and/or data.
The security of the STB Soc may depend upon, for example, the security and reliability of the storage device content. For example, the storage device content may be altered or the storage device may be replaced with another storage device with altered content. If the storage device content is compromised, then the host processor may blindly execute the compromised content (e.g., host processor instructions). The host processor may never be aware of the compromised content and thus the security of the STB SoC may be successfully breached.
In addition, after the completion of the booting process or after the loading of the compromised content into the host processor, the host processor may be unable to verify its own code.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art through comparison of such systems with one or more aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.